"Baffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which baffle the efforts of the legislator—The Federal system is complex—It demands a daily exercise of discretion on the part of the citizens—Practical knowledge of government common amongst the Americans—Relative weakness of the Government of the Union, another ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... won over by personal inducements, and remote from the imperial agencies which had worked so effectively through the Chamber of Magnates, the lesser nobility of Hungary during these years of absolutism carried the habit of political discussion to their homes, and learnt to baffle the imperial Government by withholding all help and all information from its subordinate agents. Each county-assembly became a little Parliament, and a centre of resistance to the usurpation of the Crown. The stimulus given to the national spirit by this struggle ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... had not reached, to call his household around him, represent the terrible sufferings and fate that awaited them, which he believed was owing to the influence of an evil spirit who desired to extirpate the race, and incited them to baffle death with all its horrors by at once killing themselves—at the same time offering to perform the deed of mercy with his own hand if their hearts ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... warm odors of the place and its perpetual whispering and the illimitably idiotic boasting of the birds,—that any living creature should be proud of having constructed one of their nasty little nests is a reflection to baffle understanding,—this hodge-podge of sensations, I say, will intoxicate you. Yes, it will thoroughly intoxicate you, Marian, and you sit there quite still, in a sort of stupor, drugged into the inebriate's magnanimity, firmly believing that the remainder of your life ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... those last awful moments for solace and affection, I was to tell him that the girl he loved, the woman he adored, had since that one night kept the purpose of vengeance hot in her heart,—that for years her sole study had been to baffle and to wound him,—and that now, through all those months that she had been beside him, that he had looked to her as friend, helper, comforter, she had kept her deadly aim in view. She had deceived him with false hopes of recovery; she had turned again to the world the thoughts which he would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... which enter into privateering are doubtless very great, and to some extent baffle calculation. In this it only shares the lot common to all warlike enterprise, in which, as the ablest masters of the art repeatedly affirm, something must be allowed for chance. But it does not follow that a reasonable measure ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... rarely set in, when the patient has been subject to the packs from the beginning of the disease, there will be cases when water-treatment can neither prevent such an event or even save the life of the patient afflicted by scarlet-fever. There will be a case, now and then, to baffle any mode of treatment, and the physician must not be blamed for losing a patient of scarlatina occasionally, but it is not necessary that people should continue to die of this disease in such numbers, as they have been destroyed ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... take my advice, gentlemen,' said the highwayman, trotting up upon a beautiful bay mare, 'I should say that your best course is to allow me to act as guide to you as far as the camp. It will be strange if I cannot find roads which shall baffle these blundering soldiers.' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the bitter teachings of experience. Always fond of Kenrick, he had never been blind to his many faults of character, and was particularly displeased with his present manner, which he knew to be only adopted on purpose to baffle any approach ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... both of which, if we mistake not, man's position is precisely similar—placed, that is, amidst evidence abundantly sufficient to justify his reasonable faith, and yet attended with difficulties abundantly sufficient to baffle an indocile reason. ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... or more individual sections or Parts, with or without a recurrence of the First one; or into three different Parts, lacking the evidence of the return to the beginning. When such irregularities are encountered, or when any conditions appear which elude or baffle natural classification among the Three-Part Song-forms (simple or enlarged), the piece may be called a group of Parts. The use of this term is entirely legitimate, and is commended to the student on account of its convenience, for all examples of the Song-form which, upon thoroughly ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... Dodd, and put to her a few questions, which drew out the main facts I have just related. The papers were now brought in. "Excuse me a moment," said he, and ran over them. "I believe the man is sane," said he, "and that you will have enabled us to baffle ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... they had rigged up the top of the old bedstead in the way I have described. There was, needless to say, a secret passage at the back of the tapestry, which was so cunningly hidden in the panelling as to baffle all ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... did not baffle our William. He approached from a flank, deftly twitched the infant out of its cradle by the scruff of its neck, and commenced to plaster it with tender kisses. However the red man tailed it as it went past and hung on, kissing any bits ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... them? Why, burned them, of course; not in the fire-place, but in the little stove in the front room. His end accomplished, what does he do next? He flies, carrying with him all that he finds valuable, to baffle detection, by suggesting a robbery. He wrapped everything he found worth taking in the napkin which was to have served him at dinner, and blowing out the candle, he fled, locking the door on the outside, and throwing the key into a ditch. ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... prison chapel drew a crowd of fashionable folk, to stare at those who were to die, packed together in a long pew hung with black, and on a table in front was placed an open coffin. Outside, in the Old Bailey, on the days of execution, the awful scenes nearly baffle description. Thousands collected to gloat over the dying struggles of the criminals, and fought and roared and trampled each other to death in their horrible eagerness, so that hundreds were wounded or killed. Ten or a dozen were ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard's books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The corn-factor's mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to burn, in spite of their apprehension that the smell and smoke might be observed. They then shut up the chest, replaced the padlocks and chains with those they had brought for the purpose, and renewed the seals with the queen's signet, which, bearing the royal arms, would baffle detection that the seals had been tampered with. They then took the crown into the chapel, where they found a red velvet cushion, so large that by taking out some of the stuffing a hiding-place was made in which the crown ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... that this time their mystical means of communication was somehow not working. But after her last hello, no sound broke the white silence of the fog except the throb of Alderling's oars. She was evidently resting on hers, lest she should baffle his attempts to find her ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... was found to be warm. Through the shoulder had passed a musquet ball, which had divided the subclavian artery and caused death by loss of blood. No mark of any remedy having been applied could be discovered. Possibly the nature of the wound, which even among us would baffle cure without amputation of the arm at the shoulder, was deemed so fatal, that they despaired of success, and therefore left it to itself. Had Mr. White found the man alive, there is little room to think that he could have been of any use ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... her, "O my mother, this is thy time, ere the Sultan enter his palace [and withdraw] to his harem. Take him what he seeketh, and that forthright, so he may know that I can avail unto that which he requireth, ay, and more, and that he was deluded by the Vizier; albeit he thought to baffle me, he and his Vizier." Then he arose and opening the house-door, let out the damsels and the slaves, pair by pair, each damsel with a slave by her side, so that they filled the street. His mother forewent them and the people ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... to snow once more. And as Shirley slipped out of the engine-house, carrying a scaling ladder which he had borrowed after much persuasion from his good-natured friend, he thanked his luck for this natural veiling of the night, to baffle eyes too curious about the campaign he had planned. He knew the posts of the policemen on this ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... While the family were at dinner, the house was entered by means of a ladder placed against a bedroom window, all outer doors and ground-floor windows having been fastened from outside by screws or wire or rope; and wires were stretched across the lawn to baffle pursuit in case the thieves were discovered. The next day the Chief Constable of the county called on me; for, as he said, such a crime was beyond the capacity of provincial practitioners, and he expected us to find the delinquents among our pets ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... These Gipsies can do anything with the earth, the ore, the sand. Snaffles, whose side-bars no brute can baffle, locks that would puzzle a locksmith, horseshoes that turn on a swivel, bells for the sheep . . . all these are good, but what they ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... foreknowledge, and power, that can communicate its intentions beforehand, and afterwards verify them in this manner, has the attributes of God, and must be Divine; a chance that can hear and answer prayer, that can work out its own designs and baffle those of others, that can reveal secrets to His favourites and honourably keep covenants, deserves the faith and worship of all men: this was Abe Lockwood's God, and He shall be ours for ever and ever. There are some who say, "What is the Almighty that we should serve ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... dead. A moment more would place them on my trail, hot for revenge; and there was no course left me but to take the water, before their keen eyes found me out. I waded out, seeking thus to get far enough from shore to baffle their search, when suddenly a quick spark of light winked from the blackness in front of me. Surely it could be nothing less than a signal, the swift stroke of flint on steel,—no doubt in the faint hope it would prove a beacon to me ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... engineer's force came in to say that they had made progress in repairing the boiler baffle plates, designed to keep the funnels from torching when under high speed, but that they were at the point where advice ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... love you, only somethin' makes me shake away from you—because Pierre's dead." This was a Joan he had not yet realized, and he knew that after all his enchanted leopardess was a woman and that his wooing of her had hardly yet begun. So did she baffle him by the utter directness of her heart. There was so little of a barrier against him and yet—there was so much. For the first time, he doubted his wizardry, and, at that, his desire for the wild girl's love stood up like a ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... or too far from anything; we freely fall from chimneys or precipices, and I suppose it will soon be aeroplanes, with no worse consequences than comfortably waking up into the everyday world; we sometimes solve the problems which baffle us here; we see more beautiful things than we see here; and, far above all, we resume the ties that ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... the northern part of New Jersey, we had a vertical drier, a column about nine feet square and eighty feet high. At the bottom there was a space where two men could go through a hole; and then all the rest of the column was filled with baffle plates. One day this drier got blocked, and the ore would not run down. So I and the vice-president of the company, Mr. Mallory, crowded through the manhole to see why the ore would not come down. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Missouri, which was conveying the Hon. Caleb Cushing, American minister at China, to Alexandra, whilst at anchor in Gibraltar bay, on the 26th ult., was entirely consumed by fire. The fire broke out in the night, and raged with such determined fury as to baffle all the efforts of the crew, as well as that of the assistance sent from her Majesty's ship Malabar, and from the garrison. The magazines were flooded soon after the commencement of the fire; and, although a great many shells burst, ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... was making his way towards her, with strong steps and sturdy shoulders fighting with the wind, which seemed determined to baffle his attempts to reach Valmai before the periodical recurring inrush of opposite streams should once more meet, and rise in towering strife together. Thoroughly frightened and trembling, Valmai looked in horror at the two opposing ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... strange; but I suppose that there is a feeling of encouragement in our present day distress and spiritual ineffectiveness in the thought that even under S. John the Church in Ephesus was not wholly ideal. The conditions which baffle us, baffled him. The converts who were so promising and enthusiastic declined in zeal and fell back under the spell of worldliness. Zeal is a quality which is maintained with great difficulty, and the pull of the world, whether social or business, is steadily exercised. ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... Best. Particulars of the source of each story will be found in the Notes on the Sources at the end of this volume. In the same place will also be found a pronouncing-index of proper names. I have endeavoured, in the text, to avoid or to modify any names which in their original form would baffle the English reader, but there remain some on the pronunciation of which he may be glad ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... chance in a thousand which Meynell had foreseen, and hoped, as mortals do, to baffle, had come to pass. That morning, a careless letter enclosing the payment of a debt, and written by a young actor, who had formed part of one of the bohemian parties at the Abbey, during the summer, and ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... first night in a week his mind and body took the rest that had been denied them for so long. The thing was behind him. It was over. He had earned his right to sleep. When he laid his head upon the pillow there was no fear of evil dreams, no qualms, no troubled conscience to baffle the demands of exhaustion. He had done no wrong. His sleep was long, sweet, refreshing. He had no fear of God in his soul that night, for he had spoken with God in the silence of the long night before and he was at peace with Him. No man could say that he had not tried to save the ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Years Siege—but Ladies are more craftily subdu'd; you mustn't storm a Nymph with Sword and Pistol, pursue her as you wou'd a tatter'd Frenchman, push her Attendants into the Danube, then seize her, and clap her into a Coach—I'll baffle her at her own Argument, swear I'd not wed a Phoenix of her Sex, and laugh at Dress and Beauty, Wit and Fortune, when purchas'd only at the Price of Liberty—then sweeten her again with ogling Smiles, look Babies in her Eyes, and vow she's handsome; and when ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... man was the one emotion that seemed to be left in her withered bosom. To baffle him, to evade him, to anticipate his coming and be away from home, constituted the chief object ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... evening before, and in spite of a most vigorous search was nowhere to be found. But, with minds already resolved to make this hardened smuggler's fate a warning and example to all such as should henceforth dare the law, one of the cutter's crew, wrought upon by the fear lest Jerrem should escape and baffle the vengeance they had vowed to take, was got to swear that Jerrem was the man who fired the fatal shot; and though it was shown that the night was dark and recognition next to impossible, this evidence was held conclusive to prove the crime, and nothing now ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... brush off the Mosquitoes that had alighted on their clothes, crawl into the lodge and close the door tight. Not a Mosquito was left alive in it, and the smoke hanging about the smoke-vent was enough to keep them from coming in, and so they slept in peace. Thus they could baffle the worst pest of the woods. But there was yet another destroyer of comfort by day, and this was the Blue-bottle flies. There seemed more of them as time went on, and they laid masses of yellowish eggs ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "Don't baffle her object," he expostulated; "why make a fool of her?" and turning to goody Liu: "This Mr. Chou," he said, "is gone south: his house is at the back row; his wife is anyhow at home; so go round this way, until ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... surprise and horror I experienced when passing through some of the foul haunts and vicious hotbeds which make up the labyrinth of this modern Sodom." "How powerless" (said Mr. Booth) "are lips to describe or pens to write scenes which baffle description, and which no ink is black enough to show in their ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... was mischief ahead appeared probable enough, and it was with no pleasant feelings that when darkness came I mentally surveyed the situation, and bethought me of some plan by which to baffle those ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... arena where fame adjudges laurel crowns, and reluctantly and sullenly drops one now and then on female brows. To possess herself of the golden apple of immortality was a purpose from which she had never swerved; but how to baffle the dragon critics who jealously guarded it was a problem whose ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... a steward still, the fellow of seruants, and not woorthie to touch Fortunes fingers Farewell, Shee that would alter seruices with thee, the fortunate vnhappy daylight and champian discouers not more: This is open, I will bee proud, I will reade politicke Authours, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off grosse acquaintance, I will be point deuise, the very man. I do not now foole my selfe, to let imagination iade mee; for euery reason excites to this, that my Lady loues me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, shee did praise my legge being crosse-garter'd, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... it with various small signs of eager self-effacement which suggested to Rowland that his diminished gentility but half relished honors which had a flavor of patronage. To perform punctiliously his mysterious duties toward the two ladies, and to elude or to baffle observation on his own merits—this seemed the Cavaliere's modest programme. Rowland perceived that Mrs. Light, who was not always remarkable for tact, seemed to have divined his humor on this point. She touched her glass to her lips, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... only occupied the time which Reuben took to undo the complicated folds by which, before the days of envelopes, correspondents endeavored to baffle the curiosity of those who sought to know more than was intended for them. But what is this? for Reuben's eyes had been so greedy to suck up the words that he had not given his mind time to grasp their meaning: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... off. One foo fighter chased Lieutenant Meiers of Chicago some 20 miles down the Rhine Valley, at 300 m.p.h., an A.P. war correspondent reported. Intelligence officers believed at that time that the balls might be radar-controlled objects sent up to foul ignition systems or baffle Allied radar networks. There is no explanation of their appearance here, unless the objects could have been imported for ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... as soon as possible. The odds, of course, will be so great to contend against, that, humanly speaking, you will be bound to retreat across the Orange River. Still I trust that you will not follow our example, but will find the Colony quite large enough to baffle the enemy in their attempts to capture you. And as the British have already exerted themselves in vain for over three months to oust you, we entertain the hope that you will maintain your ground ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,— And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such deg.— deg.14 The vagrant Scholar to his Sage deg. at home deg.15 Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snake-stone deg.—rarer still, deg.17 One of the other ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... mechanical conception of phenomena; so that, in every new combination of forces, the intermixed effect, or resultant, may be calculated beforehand; provided that the forces concerned admit of being quantitatively estimated, and that the conditions of their combination are not so complex as to baffle the powers of mathematicians. In such cases, when direct observation or experiment is insufficient to resolve an effect into the laws of its conditions, the general method is to calculate what may be expected from a ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... shortly afterward. The leaders of the Opposition would fain have had the point settled by what, in truth, would not have settled it—another resolution of the House of Commons. But, though it was discussed in several warm debates, Grenville always contrived to baffle his adversaries, though on one occasion his majority dwindled to fourteen.[9] What, however, the House of Commons abstained from affirming was distinctly, though somewhat extra-judicially, asserted by Lord Camden, as Chief-justice of the Common Pleas. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... every subject. His objections proceeded as much from his mind as his heart. "Catholicism," he was wont say, "is the most ancient of worships; and as for our own heresy, it unquestionably had its origin in vice. With regard to those difficulties which baffle our understanding, are they more easily explained by ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... was now half-past five. In three hours they would be here. What would Wyndham have done? Caned them, no doubt. Riddell had no cane. Ruler? He might break one of their ringers, or they might resist; or worse still baffle him with some ingenious excuse which he would not know ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... luncheon, when the snowstorm had come on too thickly for Dora to go out again, Harold insisted on going to see how the world looked from the moor. I entreated him not to go far, telling him how easy it was to lose the way when all outlines were changed in a way that would baffle even a black fellow; but he listened with a smile, took a plaid and a cap and sallied forth. I played at shuttle-cock for a good while with Dora, and then at billiards with Eustace; and when evening had closed darkly in, and the whole ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... constant state of negotiation; and, if you attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep, and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all who are worth pleasing; offend ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the chagrin of Fitzpatrick and Bridger at being dogged by their inexperienced rivals, especially after their offer to divide the country with them. They tried in every way to blind and baffle them; to steal a march upon them, or lead them on a wrong scent; but all in vain. Vanderburgh made up by activity and intelligence for his ignorance of the country; was always wary, always on the alert; discovered every movement of his rivals, however secret and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... an adversary; in proof of which "Origen, says he, Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, have written many thousands of lines against Celsus, and Porphyry: consider with what arguments and what slippery problems they baffle what was contrived against them by the spirit of the devil: and because they are sometimes forced to speak, they speak not what they think, but what is necessary against those who are called Gentiles. I do not mention the Latin writers, Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius, Victorinus, ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... the river Liris, and there, not far from the town of Arpinum, was Marcian's ancestral villa. Of this he thought, as his horse trotted beside or behind the carriage. It was much out of his way; surely there would be no need to go so far in order to baffle pursuers. Yet still he thought of his villa, islanded in the Liris, and seemed to hear through the night the music of tumbling waters, and said within his heart, 'Could I ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... after dining, he resolved to baffle his impatience by working all the evening and retouching one act of his drama with which he was not perfectly content. He went to his room, lighted his lamp, and seated himself before his open manuscript. Now, then! to work! He had been silly ever since the night ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... persistency and intellectual force which had won him his "first- class" at the university. Nothing which could subserve his cause escaped his searching inquiry, and when he arose to address Parliament his mastery of his subject was so complete as to baffle the skill of the few ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... the genera, as given by the most eminent authorities, like Nageli, Kutzing, Braun Rabenht, Cohn, etc., that I think it would be quite unwise for me to settle here, or try to settle here, questions that baffle the naturalists who are entirely devoted to this specialty. We can safely leave this to them. Meantime let us look at the matter as physicians who desire the practical advantages of the discovery you have made. To illustrate this position let us take a familiar ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... Otis ranks high in his profession, having a very extensive knowledge of the law in all its ramifications, and a readiness in the application of his knowledge that enables him to baffle and confound his opponents without descending ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... care of that," answered he. "I fancy I am not so great a bungler as to overshoot my purposes and baffle my own designs; and, woman," said he, raising his arm threateningly above her head, "I caution you to beware. I believe you have already let drop some unguarded words; else why is your mistress so averse to this ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... drinking heavily before he shipped; but the captain was evidently too short of hands to be particular. I think I will give the Concanens my tin box to hide in their cabin. Of course I can trust them, and this will baffle theft; the clasp I will wear about me. This is a happy idea; I will go to their cabin now and ask them. It is 9.30 p.m., and the wind is still ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and fiber quivering with sudden passion. At realization that in the exact psychological moment when success lay almost in his hand, this surly brute might baffle him, he felt a ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... is thoroughly adapted to deal with the Asiatic. Half an Asiatic himself, in spite of his fair complexion, he knows how to baffle the arts and overcome the prejudices of his new subjects. The Russian diplomatist has all the softness and suavity of his Asiatic congeners. He conforms to their customs and allows them to delay and prevaricate to their hearts' content. He is an adept in the art of bribery, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... whinny of a horse. They are mounted, and think to baffle pursuit by their speed and knowledge, of the wood. There is no time to lose. Call up the farmer and his son. I know which is Mistress Joan's room. I will keep guard ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... lay. But you might have knocked me over with a straw when I saw you come on shore. That was good fortune, my friend... I have been thinking much about the Germans, and I will tell you the truth. It is only boldness that can baffle them. They are a most diligent people. They will think of all likely difficulties, but not of all possible ones. They have not much imagination. They are like steam engines which must keep to prepared tracks. There they will hunt any man down, but let him trek for open country and they will ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... floats toward the shore; at the same time he realized what tremendous difficulty they would have to keep the doors from "turning turtle," for there were many cunning eddies in the flood, that would strive to baffle ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... speed and power they indicated! The arch of her back rib, her flank, her clean legs, with firm, dry muscle, and tendons like steel wires, her hoofs, almost as small as a clenched fist, but open and hard as flint, all these utterly baffle description. Her hide was glossy black, without a hair of white. From her Canadian sire she had inherited the staunchest constitution, and her thoroughbred dam dowered her with speed, game, intelligence and grace. An anchorite might have coveted such an animal. When Colonel Morgan lost ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... have heard of the scales on butterflies; but there are lots of sexual characters which quite baffle all ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... subject of circumstances to fancy that the Scud was anywhere in the vicinity of a port so long established and so well known on the frontiers as Frontenac. The islands might not have been literally a thousand in number, but they were so numerous and small as to baffle calculation, though occasionally one of larger size than common was passed. Jasper had quitted what might have been termed the main channel, and was winding his way, with a good stiff breeze and a favorable current, through ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... and making a most tremendous hullaballoo. The scene on our entrance was very striking. There were three thousand people present in full dress; from the roof to the floor, the theatre was decorated magnificently; and the light, glitter, glare, show, noise, and cheering, baffle my descriptive powers. We were walked in through the centre of the centre dress-box, the front whereof was taken out for the occasion; so to the back of the stage, where the mayor and other dignitaries received us; and we were then paraded ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... supposed herself interested. He was troubled with memories of civil war and of associations still earlier, belonging to an age already vanishing or vanished; but what could she know about civil war who had been almost an infant at the time? At this moment, she happened to be interested in the baffle of Waterloo, for she was reading "Vanity Fair," and had cried as she ought for poor little Emmy, when her husband, George Osborne, lay dead on the field there, with a bullet through his heart. But how was she to know that here, only a few ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... fury of the pestilence. Sometimes, indeed, when the deaths were less numerous, a hope began to be entertained that the distemper was abating, and confidence was for a moment restored; but these anticipations were speedily checked by the reappearance of the scourge, which seemed to baffle and deride all ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... into dreams, but in the presence of Krakatau's smoking crater, the memories looming over the haunted volcano translate themselves into a nightmare of horror, for the shadows of doom still cling to the monumental pyramid, a menacing witness to the existence of those occult laws which baffle human investigation with their insoluble problems, and compel the defeated scientist to acknowledge himself a mere chronicler of inexplicable mysteries. The extent of the volcanic zone encircling the Malay Archipelago ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... by her feeling she had thus found the way to show she was not simple. It struck out of Mrs. Wix that this lady still believed her moral sense to be interested and feigned; so what could be such a gage of her sincerity as a peep of the most restless of the passions? Such a revelation would baffle discouragement, and discouragement was in fact so baffled that, helped in some degree by the mere intensity of their need to hope, which also, according to its nature, sprang from the dark portent of the absent letter, the real pitch of their ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... attempts, I had directed my attention exclusively to the villages and small towns, in which it was quite easy for the government to frustrate my efforts by means of circulars to the local authorities, who would of course be on the alert, and whose vigilance it would be impossible to baffle as every novelty which occurs in a small place is forthwith bruited about. But the case would be widely different amongst the crowds of the capital, where I could pursue my labours with comparative secrecy. My present plan ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... too with every attention to its diminished income; shut up the windows of one half of her house, to baffle the tax-gatherer; retrenched her furniture; discharged her pair of post-horses, and pensioned off the old humpbacked postilion who drove them, retaining his services, however, as an assistant to a still more aged hostler. To console herself for restrictions by which her pride was ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... I must yield: Stupidity can baffle the very gods. High Reason, radiant Daughter of God's Head, Wise Foundress of the system of the Universe, Conductress of the stars, who art thou, then, If, tied to th' tail o' th' wild horse Superstition, Thou must plunge, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... that it was replaced before any of the outdoor trials began. Another type consisted of a cylindrical metal shell, perhaps six inches in diameter and ten or twelve inches long. Here a series of perforated baffle plates were inserted, with alternating solid plates having parts of their external edges cut away. Two bolts running the length of the muffler held on the cast-iron heads in a manner quite similar to the ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... the new-comer also made herself comfortable in her seat, which, being opposite to that of Ashby, gave her the opportunity of examining his face at her leisure, if she felt so inclined, while she herself was so closely veiled as to baffle recognition. Her dress, though very plain, was in the latest fashion, and she wore with inimitable grace that marvellous Spanish mantilla which is equally adapted to adorn and to conceal. Although in the opposite seat, she was not close to Ashby, but at the other end of ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... most cordial haters of the French, that ever existed; but there is an indolence and a want even of the power of exertion in their disposition and habits, either for their own security, that of their country, or of their allies, which baffle all our ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... drawn nigh the edge of the river, Weird-like creatures suddenly rise; Shapes that fade, dissolving outlines Baffle ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... was rivalled a few years ago by M. Herzen's clever plan of sending great numbers of his treasonable and forbidden paper, the Kolokol, to Russia, soldered up in sardine-boxes. No Government, in fact, can ever baffle determined and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... may be long troubled as well as his outer life. The dank mists of doubtful thought may close around his way, and hide from him the Light of the world! cold winds from the desert of foiled endeavour may sorely buffet and for a time baffle his hope; but every now and then the blue pledge of a great sky will break through the clouds over his head; and a faint aurora will walk his darkest East. Gradually he grows more capable of imagining a world in which every good thing thinkable may be a fact. ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... exquisite visitants: Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires With living looks intolerable, regrets Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been— Beautiful, miserable, distraught— The Law no man may baffle denied ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... old age should grow upon her, the singular felicity and glory of her reign would preserve her from contempt; the affections of her subjects, and those of all the Protestants in Europe, would defend her from danger; and her own prudence, without other aid or assistance, would baffle all the efforts of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... the waters is from the sea, through the clouds, over the land, back to the sea again, therefore the derivation and course of souls from God, through life, back to God, must be similar. There are mysteries in connection with the soul that baffle the most lynx eyed investigation, and on which no known facts of the physical world can throw light. Secondly, the scheme of emanation depends on a vulgar error, belonging to the infancy of philosophic thought, and inconsistent with some ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... explanation she could give. It was evidently one of those mysterious cases of spiritual disease which completely baffle our reason. Although compelled to accept her statement, I felt incapable of suggesting any remedy. I could only hope that the abnormal condition into which she had fallen might speedily wear out her vital energies, already seriously shattered. She informed me, further, that each attack was succeeded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... bids the cloudy mists recede. Prepar'd already, Jove the nymph had chang'd, And in a lovely heifer's form she stood. A shape so beauteous fair,—though sore chagrin'd, Unwilling Juno prais'd; and whence she came, And who her owner asks; and of what herd? Her prying art, as witless of the truth, To baffle, from the earth he feigns her sprung; And straight Saturnia begs the beauteous gift. Embarrass'd now he stands,—the nymph to leave Abandon'd, were too cruel;—to deny His wife, suspicious: shame compliance urg'd; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... majesty of your virtue; the native dignity, which, in a situation so very difficult, (friendless, destitute, passing for a wife, cast into the company of crea- tures accustomed to betray and ruin innocent hearts,) has hitherto enabled you to baffle, over-awe, and confound, such a dangerous libertine as this; so habitually remorseless, as you have observed him to be; so very various in his temper, so inventive, so seconded, so supported, so instigated, too pro- ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... to his part, and no argument shuts him out for a quarreller. Of all disgraces he endures not to be nonplussed, and had rather fly for sanctuary to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing, which all. His boldness is beholden to other men's modesty, which rescues him many times from a baffle; yet his face is good armour, and he is dashed out of anything sooner than countenance. Grosser conceits are puzzled in him for a rare man; and wiser men, though they know him, [yet] take him [in] for their pleasure, or as they ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... experienced for the safety of her friend. But when the malady remained obstinate to his prescriptions, and other insidious symptoms set in, pointing to a gradual decay of the vital energies, he divined that the ill was a mental one which would baffle his art unless he could ascertain its cause from the patient herself. Her confession of it would be half the cure. But he did not succeed in extracting this confession. Pauline did not know what ailed her. Beyond a great prostration she did ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... singularly complex and unique, that one leaves the study of them impressed only with a deep, abiding sense of his inability to fathom them. We have in our midst one such, the penetration of whose manifestations and phenomena is well calculated to baffle the most zealous investigator. Reared among the rugged hill-sides and verdant vales of Williamstown, his character and oratory bear the evident impress of his nurturing. If to Elihu Burritt belongs the title of "The Learned Blacksmith," not ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... lengthen out the war; others that they should harass the army of the Castillians with frequent skirmishes and assaults, and never give them battle power to power, thinking that in this manner they might baffle them till the winter came on. Don Rodrigo Frojaz was at this time recovering of the wounds which he had received at Agoa de Mayas, and he said unto the King that it behoved him above all things to put his ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... appeared to me best to be adopted on this occasion, that they might be submitted to Your Royal Highness's consideration; and I take the liberty of repeating my firm conviction, that it will greatly advance Your Royal Highness's credit, and, in case of events, lay the strongest grounds to baffle every attempt at opposition to Your Royal Highness's just claims and right, that the language of those who may be, in any sort, suspected of knowing Your Royal Highness's wishes and feelings, should be that ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Bard, with such a snow-storm in his imagination, when telling the shepherds to be kind to their helpless charge, addressed them in language which, in an ordinary mood, would have been bombast. "Shepherds," says he, "baffle the raging year!" How? Why merely by filling their pens with food. But the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... but I expected to hear her say that she would consent to any sacrifice for the sake of her dear daughter. No such clap-trap as that passed her lips. She owned the true motive with a superiority to cant which won my sincerest respect. 'I'll do anything,' she said, 'to baffle Herbert Linley and the spies he has set to watch us.' I can't tell you how glad I was that she had her reward on the same day. We were too late at the station, and we had to wait for the next train. And what do you think happened? The two scoundrels followed us ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... major moved away, and seemed determined to baffle him, Joel had no choice between complying and exposing his disobedience of orders to the captain. He disliked doing the last, for his cue was to seem respectful and attached, and he was fain to submit. Never before, however, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... was, therefore, a short cut to baffle German intrigue and solve the problem of South African unity at one blow. For to Rhodes the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders meant the withdrawal of the Transvaal Government from its opposition to his scheme of commercial federation. It is obvious that one ground of justification, ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... that was an Aunt, whose liberality even exceeded her own. When Greek met Greek over Christmas presents, then came the tug of war indeed! The Aunt's ingenuity in contriving to give away whatever plums were given to her was quite amazing, and she generally managed to baffle the most careful restrictions which were laid upon her; but Julie conquered at last, by yielding—as often ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... a very adequate picture when both the centre of it and the circumference of it baffle thought. The materialist or "objectivist" may be satisfied with such a result, but it is a result which does not answer the question of philosophy, but rather denies that any answer is possible. But though this obvious objective spectacle of the universe, with our bodily ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... side of a roaring torrent, he built himself a house of iron and stone, and placed a door on each of its four sides, so that he could see whatever passed around him. There, for many winters, he lived in lonely solitude, planning with himself how he might baffle his enemies and regain his old place in Asgard. Now and then he slipped slyly away from his hiding-place, and wrought much mischief for a time among the abodes of men. But when Thor heard of his evil-doings, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... whose people cultivated it was as ready to pay tribute to the Spaniard as to the Corsair. Medina-Celi and his troops accordingly set to work undisturbed at the erection of a fortress strong enough to baffle the besieging genius even of the Turks. In two months a strong castle was built, with all scientific earthworks, and the admiral prepared to carry home such troops as were ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... for being discreet. I know this cross eyed man you speak of, and know that he is the secretary of one of the most cruel and bloody of the Council; and it was but yesterday that I escaped from his hands almost by a miracle. And I would now, if I could, baffle the villain again. I suppose they ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... suspected the designs of the stranger, and they conferred among themselves, as to the surest mode of guarding against the meditated blow of Wauchee. They well recognized by his paint and garb the Mohawk warrior, and they resolved to baffle his assault, and for ever prevent his return to the people ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... be the utterance of the same person, when he has grasped the fact that the loved one is determined to elude him. She may baffle his pursuit, but he will never desist from it, though it ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... sudden desire to test him. Pretending that my purpose was only to cross and report, I waded the stream and dodged upward through the undergrowth; recrossed it, about a hundred yards above, crawled another yard and again recrossed, all to baffle the hound's scent, since from Farrell I could have hidden by this time securely enough. In a very few minutes I heard his voice hallooing to me, and then the dog's yelp began to chime in with it. By and by the beast, well baffled, was baying hard through the ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... endeavours to gain over the inhabitants to his side, and to engage them to join his army. They even endeavoured more than once to kill Ribera and Alvarez, but these officers used such precautions as to baffle all their attempts. Ribera and Alvarez waited patiently for receiving the regulations from the viceroy; but owing to the great distance of their city from Lima, these had not yet reached them. In the mean time, they commanded all the inhabitants, under severe penalties, to remain in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... for the Flag, by the love that we bear In the Union and Freedom, we'll baffle despair; Trust on in our country, strike home for the right, And Treason shall vanish like mists of the night. Then cheer the old Flag! every star in it glows, The terror of traitors! the curse of our foes! And the victory that crowns us ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... fruits; or, when snow is on the ground, he eats the string moss hanging in masses from the trees. He willingly takes to the water, and will cross a lake or broad river, swimming at a rapid rate with his whole body submerged, his head alone appearing above the surface; thus he will often baffle his pursuers, even though they may follow him with a boat. He has been known, indeed, when hard-pressed near the sea-coast, to plunge into the ocean, and buffeting the waves, to make his way far from the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... apparently submitting to the directions of his medical adviser, was secretly indulging in his usual overwhelming quanties of opium! Heedless of his health and every honorable consideration, he contrived to obtain surreptitiously the fatal drug, and thus to baffle the ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... the English policy of increasing the number of negro slaves in America agitated many minds in the colonies, opposition to the system of taxation was the principal source of action; and this opposition now centered in a determination to baffle the designs of Great Britain in respect to the duties on tea. Seventeen millions of pounds of tea were now accumulated in the warehouses of the East-India Company. The government was determined, for reasons I ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... experience would lead us to believe that it was a phantom conjured up by some unusual condition of his own brain; but we are fain to confess that there certainly do exist in nature phenomena such as baffle human reason; and it is possible that, for some hidden purposes of Providence, permission may occasionally be granted to those who have passed from this life to assume again for a time the form of their earthly tabernacle. We must, I say, be content to suspend our judgment ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... observed. "Dorminster," he added, turning to his host, "I heard the other day, on very good authority, that you were thinking of writing a novel. If you are, study the lady who has just entered. There is a type for you, an intelligence which might baffle ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have incensed me, can in soul Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare To spurn or baffle them; or squirt their eyes With ink or urine: or I could do worse, Arm'd with Archilochus' fury, write iambicks, Would make ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... in his novel, of the ancient city of Thebes, of the great necropolis in the valley of Biban el Moluk, of the subterranean tombs, of the precautions taken by the designers to baffle curiosity, of the form and ornamentation of the sarcophagi, of the mummy-cases, of the mummy itself, of the manners, customs, dress, and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, are marvellously accurate. Nothing is easier than ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... of theatrical Montmartre, American, and come back of the wine shop in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve! Leave behind the turning mill wheel, American, and come into the Avenue de Choisy, where over a preglacial store a couple of cornets baffle the night and set a hundred feet in motion, feet from the Gobelin quarter, feet from the Butte-aux-Cailles! More leathery feet, to be sure, than the suede feet of the Ziegfeld Montmartre, but kicking up a different wax dust, the wax dust of a ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... P. Irish rise!" the edict rang As when Creation into being sprang! Nature, not clearly understanding, tried To make a bird that on the air could ride. But naught could baffle the creative plan— Despite her efforts 'twas almost a man. Yet he had risen—to the bird a twin— Had she but fixed a ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... And they failed to turn and follow, Save a very little number, Who restrained their lusts and wishes, And gave heed unto the sayings Which the kindly spirits bore them, Gaining power, the more they harken'd, To withstand the evil spirits, And to baffle their endeavours. These went to the land of Blisses; But for one who Sero passed Through the wicket on his right hand, Going to the holy regions, Seven passed on his left hand, Going to the pit of terrors. ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... belongs to the Ramesside period; the writing is careful and for the most part very distinct; some lacunae are met with toward the end, and in a few passages the characters baffle the ...
— Egyptian Literature
... the fullest and most becoming sense of the distinction conferred upon him, and had sought to bestow her token in a manner which should prove his devotion and gratitude. But his tight-fitting foreign uniform had threatened to baffle his desire, till, in the exigency of the moment, he took out a pocket-knife (or was it his sword from its sheath?) and cut a slit in the breast of his coat on the left side, over the heart, where he put the flowers. Was this at the end of that second day after the brothers' arrival, on ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... to sustain my self-esteem, even though it lessened the amount of justification which my jealousy may have supposed itself possessed of. The disease had been growing too long within my bosom. It had taken too deep root—had spread its fibres into a region too rank and stimulating not to baffle any ordinary diligence on the part of the extirpator, even if he had been industrious and sincere. It had been growing with my growth, had shared my strength from the beginning, was a part of my very existence! Still, though not with that hearty fondness which her feeling ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... his mind being busied with speculations as to what he might find in the mysterious alley. The weather was very mild, and he knew the sheet of ice and snow that had covered the ground on his previous visit would not now exist to baffle him. But he did not want to enter the alley until darkness had fallen to offer him concealment, so abated his usual brisk pace to a mere saunter, and took careful note of the attitude of the people he passed. The streets were quiet enough, but ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... not Charles sweetly chous'd the States, By Bergen-baffle grown more wise; And made 'em shit as small as rats, By their rich Smyrna fleet's surprise: Had haughty Holmes, but call'd in Spragg, Hans had been put into ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... hear the Saviour's voice, The fettered tongue its chain may break; But the deaf heart, the dumb by choice, The laggard soul, that will not wake, The guilt that scorns to be forgiven; - These baffle e'en the spells of Heaven; In thought of these, His brows benign Not e'en in healing ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... do I see that all knowledge is vain; That Science finds Error still keep in her train; That Imposture or Darkness, with Doubt and Surmise, Will mislead, will perplex, and then baffle the wise, Who often, when labours have shorten'd their span, Declare—not to know—is the province ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... to be toward steady concentration in great centers. The evils of congestion do not deter the thronging multitudes. The attractions of the city are irresistible, even to those who exist in the most wretched conditions. The tenement districts baffle description, yet nothing is more difficult than to get their miserable occupants to leave their fetid and squalid surroundings for the country. To the immigrants the city is a magnet. Here they find colonies ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... fleets of bygone ages induced the O.S.N. Company to violate the sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable airs sporting lightly with the vast semicircle of waters within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam power of their excellent fleet. Year after year the black hulls of their ships had gone up and down the coast, in and out, past Azuera, past the Isabels, past Punta Mala—disregarding everything ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... a horseman at full speed; crack fell the lash on the black bull's hide; out spirted the blood in a long streak. The bull turned savagely—charged the horseman. The horse wheeled round just enough to baffle him—no more—again the lash descended, cutting like a long, flexible razor, but the mad bull was not to be beaten off by a whip: he charged again and again; but he had met his match; right and left, as needed, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. And they cast chains on her, who was ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... was ready to snatch at any straw. If he could only speak to Morris he would order that they should stay and keep watch by the sufferer's side all night, and so baffle any nefarious attempt that might ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... modifying the idea expressed earlier in the same paper, that the proper function of writing "is truthfully to represent the present speech." But the difficulties to be encountered in an effort to make the present speech homogeneous will baffle the wisdom of the reformers. I will not answer the question now—I will only ask it: What is the present speech? Who is to determine that? "The scholars formally recognize that there is and ought to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... He had liked her the instant she favored him with her friendly smile, and so, trusting fatuously to his masculine powers of observation, he tried to analyze her. He could not guess her age, for an expensive ladies' tailor can baffle the most discriminating eye. Certainly, however, she was not too old— he had an idea that she would tell him her exact age if he asked her. While he could not call her beautiful, she was something immensely better—she was alive, human, interesting, and interested. ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... not the worst form of suffering that afflict humanity. Lady Rosamond was enduring a mental conflict that was crushing in its intensity. The more she tried to baffle its power the more forcibly did it affect her. Vainly had she struggled within herself for aid, but no response. Faint hope dawned in the form of appeal. She now resolved to go to her dear companion with all her trials and tale of suffering. At intervals this hope died away, ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... involuntary martyrs to repair thither at once. Yes! even gout, that has so long laughed out at all pharmacopoeias, and tortured us from the time "when our wine and our oil increased"—Gout, that colchicum would vainly attempt to baffle, that no nepenthe soothes, no opium can send to sleep—Gout, that makes as light of the medical practitioner as of his patient; that murdered Musgrave, and seized her very own historian by the hip[9]—this, our most formidable foe, is to be conquered at Vichy! ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... at the same time is the most difficult to be translated. Who would believe that a work which paints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and follies of mankind, and where we meet with more sentiments than words, should baffle the endeavours of the ablest translator? But the reason of this is, almost every part of it alludes to particular incidents. The clergy are there made the principal object of ridicule, which is understood but by few among the laity. To explain this a commentary would be requisite, and humour ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... scene, during which I could guess that the denouement of the play was near at hand, I went to my charming countess, taking care to change my gondola three times—a necessary precaution to baffle spies. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... hungry and the thirsting soul. Men, in their pride and self-reliance, in their sense of manhood, may seek to enter the kingdom of heaven by a different method; they may attempt to speculate their way through all the mystery that overhangs human life, and the doubts that confuse and baffle the human understanding; but when they find that the unaided intellect only "spots a thicker gloom" instead of pouring a serener ray, wearied and worn they return, as it were, to the sweet days of childhood, and in the gentleness, and tenderness, and docility ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... across his recollection that his gun had remained unloaded, and he applied himself eagerly to repair this negligence, when he heard the dog in full cry, making swiftly in his direction. He threw himself upon the ground, where the fern was thickest; but this seemed insufficient to baffle the sagacity of the hound—the animal had got his scent, and was baying close at hand. The keepers were drawing nigh. Luke gave himself up for lost. The dog, however, stopped where the two poachers had ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... balance. The troops which are now approaching have been for years inured to the practice of slaughter; they join to a courage which defies every danger, a knowledge of every fraud and subtility which can confound or baffle an adversary. In bodily strength, in numbers, your countrymen are superior; even in courage, and the contempt of danger, they are probably not inferior to their enemies; but such are the fatal effects of military skill and discipline, that I dread ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... Either she did not believe Victoria fully, or she was wondering how the thing had come about. Alas, she was so transparent! I found myself caught by a momentary wish that I had chosen (as if I could choose, though!) a woman of the world, whose accomplished skill should baffle all my scrutiny and leave me still the consolations of uncertainty; it is probable that such a one would have extorted from me a belief in her love for five minutes every day. Not for an instant could that delusion live with Elsa's ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... to join the Vernons in the woods and she acquiesced. Two or three days afterwards they started, and at the station she gave Cartwright her hand with a smiling glance, but Cartwright knew his step-daughter and was not altogether satisfied. Barbara did not sulk; when one tried to baffle her ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... that we winnaw," cried Hal o' Nabs, "yo're neaw taen yet, feyther abbut, an' ey knoa a way to baffle 'em. If y'on let him down into t' river, Ebil, ey'n ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... southern night, with its sense of rich, luscious, breathing intensity, lay over that romantic spot in Southern Rhodesia where the grey walls of the Zimbabwe ruins, with a sublime, imperturbable indifference, continue to baffle the ingenuity and ravish the curiosity of all who would read their story. Scientists, archaeologists, tourists come and go, but the stern old walls, guarded by the sentinel hills, give back no answer to eager questioning, eager delving, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... deadliness of these two, and while some of the constitutional disorders, such as Bright's disease, diarrhoea, and irregularity of the circulation, each result in from 2000 to 3000 deaths, the cause and prevention of these are so little understood as to baffle the hygienist. There are a number of contagious diseases which, while comparatively unimportant in the number of deaths, yet are of concern because the cause of the disease is so well known that the means of prevention is quite within our power. ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... with Arthur, but with O'Hara. For days, weeks, months, she had been blindly groping toward the knowledge; and now, in a flash of intuition, it had come to her like one of those discoveries of science, which baffle investigators for years, and then miraculously reveal themselves in a moment of insight. Her first antagonism, her injustice, her unreasonable resentments and suspicions, she recognized now, in the piercing light of this discovery, as the inexplicable disguises of love. And she ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... strong affection, destroys an affection already weakened. But the mother and son adored each other with all the strength of their strong, wild natures. Even under ordinary circumstances the father's influence over a boy yet in childhood is exerted in vain if the mother lend herself to baffle it. And in this miserable position, what chance had the blunt, stern, honest Poland (separated from his son during the most ductile years of infancy) against the ascendancy of a mother who humored all the faults and gratified all the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Beware, lest I give you the heartburn; remember how Herod and Luther died of a diet of Glow-worms," and while the Nightingale (who was by no means a bad bird at stomach) was considering these propositions, escaped, hanging out false lights to baffle his enemy's pursuit. ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... least, I have been. Call me senyora, if you don't choose to call me Mrs. Morton. Are you going to give that girl up? Are you going to let her baffle you? You're a man of determination. I understand you had trouble with ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... all the rancor of insult, and to enrage him with the hopelessness of adequate retort or reprisal. It is an indignity, like taunting a ghost with cock-crow, or exhorting a clergyman to repentance. He flung himself all at once into the conversation, to bar and baffle any renewed allusion to that subject, and it was accident rather than intention which made him grasp Nehemiah in the vise ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... lines along which Paul Harley was operating remained a matter of profound amazement and mystification. His interview with Mr. Nicol Brinn had only served to baffle him more hopelessly than ever. The nature of Paul Harley's inquiries—inquiries which, presumably from the death of Sir Charles Abingdon, had led him to investigate the movements of two persons of international repute, neither apparently having even the most remote connection with ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... Waally, long before the canoes could be seen from his boat, and he was glad to get within the cover of his little haven. Once there, the different crafts were quite concealed from the view of persons outside, and it now remained to be proved whether their cover was not so complete as effectually to baffle a hostile attempt ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... you, Floy!" He gasped for breath, as if he had been writing with his heart's blood. Folding up the paper, he hid it inside his shirt and began his dogged walk, calculating the chances of escape. Once out of this shed, he could baffle a blood-hound, he knew the hills ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various |
